Shadow Puppets
by Kitsubasa
Summary: Yomiel made the mistake of telling Commander Sith he'd manipulate the most popular singer in the country. But sometimes, even mistakes can be rewarding- especially for a man who only wants to be noticed.


_arrival_

Yomiel slips into the CD store, trying his hardest to look inconspicuous. Not that that's hard these days, considering people are more ignorant of him than ever, but maybe that's just a matter of perception—in that halcyon era, years before, when he still had a fiancé and a life that was more than just forged rental paperwork, he usually had thoughts occupying his head to prevent him from noticing how painfully unnoticeable he was. Nowadays things are different; empty skull and empty future. He has nothing to pay attention to save for the self-absorbed people around him.

Shuffling uncomfortably along, trying to get used to the foreign sensation of wearing jeans and a t-shirt (his hair is even styled down—a miracle in its own right), Yomiel slides up beside a display and begins to rifle through it. If he wants his plan to go off without a hitch, if he wants to win over that Commander Sith, then he needs to know this band's lyrics off by heart. There's not much prep to do save for that, but if that isn't enough to make things difficult then Yomiel doesn't want to know what is. He pulls out what seems to be the album he needs and takes it to the counter.

"Cash or credit," the shopkeeper doesn't ask any other questions, and even the way he says that one shows he couldn't be more disinterested. Yomiel's not sure whether he's annoyed or relieved that he took the time to disguise himself only to run into the most apathetic man this side of the late-night weather presenter, but before he can mull his feelings over, the CD is in a plastic bag and he's exiting the shop. As he leaves, the replaces his sunglasses on their usual perch, front and centre position of his face. He needs to get cat food on the way home.

_tune-up_

Sissel stares at Yomiel as he rocks out on the sofa, getting a little too into his practicing. He jumps up and down on the cushions the way only a career nerd can—awkwardly, stilted. The last time he sang onstage was in a fifth grade production of Joseph and the Technicolour Dreamcoat. Even then, he'd just been a minor cast member; the 'bottom-of-the-programme-at-least-our-son-is-in-this kind'. Music is not—excuse the pun—his forte.

So why did he even say to those foreigners he'd do this? Why that band—gods, they're like, the biggest thing in the country right now. If he messes this up then his mistake is all over national TV. And then… there's Cabanela and the pigeon man. Sometimes Yomiel regrets not putting a bullet between that nosy bird-lover's eyes _before_ he teamed up with the detective, but c'est la vie. Or c'est la mort, in his case. Regardless; there can't be any screw-ups in this operation, because if anyone save his employers find out about it, then things are going to go awry.

That's not to say that it's not a risk in and of itself. Pigeonhead'll probably click on who it is anyway, once he starts thinking too hard about dead bodies and the Temsik meteor powers, he just needs to click on slowly enough that Yomiel can disappear again. He's getting good at that now; cancelling housing agreements and slipping away into the night, hiding his body in an abandoned building or a dumpster for a few days while he jumps from person to person sorting under-the-table lives for himself and Sissel. Maybe this time they can stay near the port; watch tankers come and go from their window. People travelling…

Yomiel stops jumping, air-guitaring—all that is forgotten. He misses being able to travel. That's not surprising, he misses a lot of things, but travel… so many people undervalue the ability to just get out of a country when they want. Yomiel can't, and it's one thing that's nigh-impossible to get around, even with his powers. Try to smuggle yourself away? Too many questions get asked, too much money's being tossed around. Try to leave legally? As a dead man, you can't. But soon he's going to jump that barrier with the help of Commander Sith and everything will be peachy. Yomiel sits down, finally, beside Sissel, who moves himself closer.

"Sorry if I scared you, Sissel," Yomiel says, but he doesn't turn down the screeching CD player, or even start to. Sissel responds by uncertainly moving his head so it's under Yomiel's fingertips. His master gets the hint, and soon the cat is purring softly. Yomiel's neck goes limp and he reclines into the soft old sofa. It still smells of his fiancé, even years after her death. His free hand runs its way across the cushions, hoping to feel warmth. None comes. It can smell like her, it can give him an arm to cry on, but it's never going to feel right again. In the long run, the aging (or lack thereof) is easier to live with than the dead nerves. It's a life where everything's pins and needles.

Sissel ignores the way Yomiel stares into the distance, pining for his human namesake. The man's absence is normal; and he at least isn't completely dead today. Sometimes Sissel has to put up with that: Yomiel disappears, leaving his body in the apartment to gather dust and venturing into the world as a spirit. He practices manipulating people—Sissel knows when those days come and go, because they are the days that Yomiel returns and acts like he isn't hollow. He's either excited—_I just helped a schoolteacher show her class the basics of electrical engineering_—or finally venting his sorrow—_Sissel, I just stole a man's body during his wedding to see what it felt like_. There is no in-between anymore, because Yomiel is a man of polar opposites: Schrodinger's Cat as a human, alive and yet dead.

The music pulses through the room, all loud guitars and heavy bass. When the concert comes around and the right song plays, that's when Yomiel will overshadow the singer and reveal the truth—the government's overspending in their promotions sector, the massacre they committed in the east, the serial killers they haven't caught. Poetic justice: he'll finally be committing the crime he was framed for nine years ago. But he's less eager about the vengeance, for some reason, and more eager for something else.

Maybe, he's eager to finally be noticed.

_into the green room_

After stalking the internet for a week to find someone he can use to get into the concert, Yomiel succeeds—a girl living not two blocks from his house, blogging about having bought tickets for the mosh pit. That'll get him close enough to the stage to trick his way up there. He's looked at pictures of some of the other concerts held at the stadium, and if he can get to the front then he can jump into the spotlights and into the microphone as soon as the singer passes near.

The plan is set in stone. His rewritten lyrics for the chosen song are taped to the fridge, and he's been singing in the shower for a fortnight now to get used to it—the way the verses unfold into the chorus, and the bridge soars into the upper register. But just because he can sing it now doesn't mean that the singer will be able to: there'll be instincts fighting against Yomiel, trying to make him sing the correct words, and furthermore there's the problem of getting used to a new voice. Assuming, of course, he can even control the voice. It's always the hardest part to fight against.

Hah—isn't that poetic? You can lock someone's limbs down and bind their hands, but making them speak what you want them to is almost impossible in some cases. Only those with weak-wills and distracted minds can be made to say something contrary to their thoughts. Usually, if he really wants someone to talk on cue, Yomiel will apply a little leverage—of the six-chamber variety—but he can't exactly hold someone hostage onstage at a concert.

C'est la mort. Challenges are something Yomiel enjoys, whichever way you look at him. He just hopes that his bad luck doesn't bite him as this escapade goes on.

_opening act_

In the end, he has to put up with a horde of teenage girls on the way to the show. It takes a few transfers of his soul; first guiding Sissel to the apartment where she lives, then into her light switch, then her handbag; but it goes off without a hitch. The only major issue? Having to put up with a long conversation between seventeen year olds about whether the drummer or the pianist is better-looking, and whether or not the twenty-two-year-old lead singer is too old for them. One of them—Yomiel's target—seems to have her heart set on marrying the poor musician. Sometimes, the dead man supposes, fame can be just as bad as anonymity.

There's a bus ride or two—first to the grimy old exchange in town, then onwards to the outer suburbs where the stadiums are. They pass by a few billboards advertising tonight's entertainment. The concert is going to be big; the music channel is broadcasting the entire thing live and the more noteworthy songs are sure to get a shot or two on the evening news; or they would be, if Yomiel wasn't going to turn a footnote anthem in their career into a four-minute long expose about misplaced budgeting and development of illegal weaponry.

When they arrive, everything is bright. Floodlights beam off the outer perimeter of the concert hall and from the inside comes a vibrant neon glow. Cameras flash as people capture the moment, because this will be one of the most noteworthy days of their trivial little lives—they all know that, but Yomiel almost smirks considering the way that they're right for all the wrong reasons. Gods, if they knew what he was up to they'd be trying to wring his skinny neck. He's about to get their favourite singer incarcerated—and possibly for a very long time.

The girl whose handbag he's occupying—her name seems to be Toni—joins the queue, and a long wait begins for both of them. Yomiel passes the time by looking through the contents of the bag, examining old receipts and electric-blue lipstick. Toni keeps talking with her friends, about how excited they are to hear the band live for the first time. The queue ticks down like a clock as people flood into the stadium. It's tense and everyone is bubbling with excitement—but no-one is quite as nervous as Yomiel.

All the people around him are, for once, not wrapped up in their own heads and are instead obsessing over someone else—the man Yomiel is about to possess, no less. There's a kind of euphoric feeling that surges through him whenever he remembers that. Everyone is going to care about who he is and what he is doing, even though that 'who' is a pink-haired stubby-legged punk-rocker with dodgy teeth and a love of righteousness. So basically everything the undead man is not, save for the fact that they both probably go through similar amounts of hair gel each day.

Inside. The stage. The crowds. The sounds. Less than an hour now. Yomiel slips inside of Toni and pulls her to the front of the pit. Jumping into a security guard passing by her, he walks close enough to the speakers to touch… and then it begins.

_headliner_

Yomiel could care less about the opening act. The lot of the performers are floppy-fringed youths with lyrics centred around losing their high-school girlfriends. The rhythm guitarist is from the same country as Commander Sith, Yomiel notices. They miss a fair few notes and he begins to consider short-circuiting the power through the speakers to stop the pain, but then decides against it—no speakers no headline act no deal with the blue people. He grits his intangible teeth and bears the pain.

Just when he thinks it's over, another terrible band starts playing and his ears feel like they'll bleed again. An hour or so grinds by like a derailing train, Yomiel feeling like he will end up catatonic if any more of this music keeps playing. But luckily, following the second band and a half-hour long break… the performers he's been waiting for appear.

They emerge from a plume of smoke to the back left. First is the drummer—tall and stocky, with bits of beard sprouting unevenly from his chin. Then the lead guitarist, a woman with bright blue hair cut into a boyish style, and shockingly high platform boots. Third is the bassist, another woman—this one with tattoos spread so thickly across her skin that it's hard to see its original Hispanic tones. Finally, the remaining two members come out, joking with each other even as they present themselves to the roaring crowd. Two brothers, with similar faces but different hair and clothing—one takes the keyboard set up to the back, and the other strides to the very front, planting his foot on the speaker Yomiel is waiting in.

"Hello, my friends, and welcome to the last concert of our worldwide tour! It's been four long months, but we're back home and we are ready to go!" Yomiel jumps from the speaker to the singer's guitar, and then into his microphone. "Hit it!" The singer leaps up and down, striking his guitar like a match. The rest of the band explodes to life behind him. Now there's just thing left to wait for—the song.

_the show_

When the singer finally puts down his guitar, Yomiel almost has a heart attack. The show's ending without the song having been played—what kind of luck is that? There isn't a single star shining on Yomiel, no guardian angel to fix problems like this and make life a little easier. Trying to avoid panicking—and not doing very well at it—he can only watch as the singer strides backstage, slinging off his guitar as he goes and passing it to an assistant waiting just to one side.

"How long do we let them wait?" His brother asks, shooting a look around the band. They're all exhausted—sweat drips down their faces and lines that were only hours ago hidden by makeup are now thrust into full view. This is a group of people who were not ready for fame, had not prepared semi-religiously as Yomiel had. They're in it for the passion, for the soul. He can appreciate that, once he thinks to relate their love to his own affair with computing. As he compares guitars to laptops (keys are on both and notes come out), he tunes out from the conversation the band members are having. And then the fact they're moving. He doesn't break from his stream of thoughts until the pianist, rhythm guitarist and drummer have all returned to the stage.

The bassist claps a hand over the singer's shoulder, and motions toward the curtains separating them from the audience, mumbling a few short words. Yomiel would crack a smile if he could—there was something in there about an encore. There's still a chance that things could work out.

The bass begins to drone and the piano plays light chords. Yomiel's mind races as the singer strolls back onstage, having swapped his guitar for a tambourine. "I hope you guys didn't think we were gone for good!" The wait is over. "This is our last number; for real this time. It's time for 'Secret Ren! Dez! Vous!"

Yomiel's turn now.

He is the twig-limbs, the fuchsia hair, the upturned nose—the body of the small rock star. After that jarring moment of stepping into a completely unfamiliar shell, Yomiel regains himself, and unwittingly turns the star's smile dark. The audience continues to cheer and scream. He almost doesn't want to ruin this, because for once, the world adores him, knows him, wants him. He's more than a wrongfully filed obituary and a ten-second news spot on a bizarre death: he's a human. He pretends that instead of straps and buckles and leather he's wearing his favourite suit, and that his hair is blonde, and that this is his own body. The dream is perfect and euphoric.

Then he shakes the tambourine, begins to move to the music. It's not long until he has to sing, but when he does—oh! The voice is hard to manipulate at first, but once Yomiel becomes accustomed to it it's like the voice of an angel. An angel who swallows gravel, yes, but it's still a damn sight better than his own singing, which recalls the occasion he dropped a book on Sissel's tail. The only issue is in the fact that, the more he sings, the more the crowd falls still- most of them having stopped trying to say the words along with him, realizing that something is wrong with the lyrics. Some are quieting their screaming. Many have lowered their cellphones from the air and are now just listening with a haunting calm.

This is all horribly wrong, but horribly right. Yomiel wants to stop, but he wants to go on. He's disappointing the world and turning their minds inside out with the revelations he's twisted into the song, but he's filling himself with a sick sort of glee. This is what our country does in the shadows! This is how our politicians behave when your back is turned! This! Is! My! Justice!

"When you look for the truth I sang, find the answers from which you ran—maybe then you'll realize who's… involved in this secret rendezvous." The song ends faster than Yomiel though it would. He breathes in the applause and raises his arms into the air, as if bidding the audience to love him more, more—shower their praises. Tossing his head skyward, his grin is triumphant. As the pianist approaches the singer tentatively, his face a mix of anger and worry, Yomiel jumps ship.

"What was that just then? What did you do to the lyrics?"

He floods out the way he came, entering the crowd and jumping from person to person like an overactive cat.

Proud.

Afraid.

_the encore_

"In the aftermath of last night's concer—"

"Interview with the singer's brother, pianist of the band in question—"

"—ow in police custody, where he will be held until further notice,"

Yomiel laughs and laughs and laughs.

No-one responds.

C'est la mort.


End file.
